


let the soft animal of your body love what it loves

by Princex_N



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Acceptance, Autism, Autistic Greg, Autistic Wirt, Gen, Implied/Referenced ABA Therapy, Introspection, Light Angst, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Sibling Bonding, Stimming, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:44:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: Wirt and Greg are more alike than Wirt would like to admit, but the difference is that Wirt isbetter.After the Unknown, that distinction doesn't seem to matter as much.





	let the soft animal of your body love what it loves

**Author's Note:**

> title is from Mary Oliver's _wild geese_

Wirt and Greg don't get along for two reasons, and neither of them are Wirt's fault. 

The first is that Greg is a small child, and small children are gross. This is just a fact of nature. Uncaring for the routines and necessities of personal hygiene when there are 'more interesting' things to be doing, and unable or unwilling to take the time to do things neatly are not a good combination. Eating is a mess, playing is a mess, even just walking around outdoors becomes a messy endeavor when a child does it, and Wirt doesn't care for any of that one bit. 

The second reason is a little more complicated. 

The second reason Wirt doesn't like Greg is that Greg is everything Wirt doesn't want to let himself be. 

The reality is that Wirt and Greg are more alike than Wirt would like to admit. Having the same diagnosis can do that to people, but the difference is that Wirt is  _better_. He'd had the years before his mom left his dad (before his mom had "really stopped to listen and understand", as she puts it) to learn that there was a Right Way and a Wrong Way to do things, and Wirt understood (to a certain extent) that he had to learn how to do things the Right Way if he wanted to get anywhere in life at all. 

Greg hasn't learned that, and it doesn't seem like he's going to try and learn it any time soon. 

Unlike Wirt, Greg moves however he wants, he makes strange noises, and doesn't care even a little what other people think when they stop and stare. He hops and flaps his hands when he's excited the way Wirt  _would_ rock back and forth or sway side to side, he ignores small talk and social niceties with oblivious ease in a way Wirt had to spend hours unlearning, and Greg's little songs rise to the front of his mind as quickly as snatches of poems rise to Wirts; a convenient phrase here and there to use when his own words have failed him. The difference between them is that Wirt doesn't let himself use them, and that's what makes him  _better_. 

And no matter what the small nagging feeling at the bottom of Wirt's chest says, he's definitely  _not_ jealous.

* * *

Wirt's mom sometimes tries to talk to him about everything. Something "sad" blatant in the downwards tilt of her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth, hidden in the lines on her forehead (expressions can be easy to compare to memories of studied pictures, but voices aren't as clear cut. His mom's voice sounds different when they talk about this, but Wirt can't pin down  _how_ , and the stutter of his heart beats out FAILURE every time he can't.) 

She tries to tell him that she was wrong, and so was his dad (even though Wirt doesn't remember her and his dad  _agreeing_ on much before they had agreed to split up). She explains that he doesn't have to make himself sit as still as possible - no one is going to punish him for it anymore. He doesn't have to make eye-contact if he doesn't want to - he won't get yelled at for it. He's allowed to talk about poetry if he wants to - no one will take away his journals or his books if he does. 

Wirt comprehends what she's telling him, but he doesn't really  _understand_ it. 

He understands that these changes in attitude are why Greg doesn't have to worry about any of this, and why Wirt was discouraged (not quite  _punished_ , but corrected strongly enough that he'd known it was wrong somehow) from trying to correct him, up until he'd decided that he didn't care enough about Greg to worry about it for him. He hears the words she says and understands the meanings and implications behind them. But he doesn't understand why she looks so "sad" when he tells her that he knows better now, or the way she looks away when she spies him halting himself rigid where he sits or stands when he catches himself, hands curled stiffly in his lap like crumpled wings. 

Regardless of what his mom says, Wirt does know better. He'd learned from being yelled at, or held until he'd done something  _right_ , or having his things taken away when he'd done them _wrong_. He can tell by the way his classmates don't stare at him anymore, the way they don't bully him like they used to. 

Wirt knows better. He does. And it's worth it. It is. 

Isn't it?

* * *

Maybe, despite everything, there are times when Wirt can almost let himself get along with Greg. 

Although Wirt knows better than to do it when anyone else is around, it's easier to forget about holding his hands still when it's only Greg around. Even though the words seem to go straight over his head, it's easier to let verses and rhymes slip from his tongue instead of trying to fight to get "more appropriate" words out. Despite his misgivings, it's simpler to not look Greg in the face when he has to talk to him (although that last one might just be because making himself look means noticing the shine of something sticky around Greg's mouth or the dry texture of dirt on his forehead that makes Wirt's skin crawl and his stomach turn). 

Maybe it's because they're the same. Maybe it's because Greg could never bring himself to notice or care whether or not Wirt is acting "weird". 

Either way, it's only when they're alone, only sometimes, and  _never_ acknowledged or spoken aloud. 

Like a spell that could shatter at the slightest sound. 

Wirt would not admit that he'd miss it, if it were gone. 

* * *

Halloween comes, the Unknown happens, Wirt wakes up at the bottom of a freezing lake with water in his lungs and protective urgency curled tight around the base of his throat. 

He wakes up at the hospital and feels different in a way that has nothing to do with the raw ache at the base of his skull or the ragged throb of his chest. 

He feels like Dante emerging from Hell. Theseus blinking his way out of the Labyrinth. Odysseus returning to Ithaca. 

Greg might not understand, but Wirt does. They had died, and would have stayed dead, and the fact that they hadn't was nothing short of a miracle. 

Wirt doesn't feel stronger or richer at the end of his hero's journey, but he'd learned two things while he was on it. The first is that Wirt  _cares_ about Greg; he understands that the silence of Greg's absence when he'd woken up in the snow alone and the ashen appearance of his face tangled between vines and bark had terrified him down to his core, and he knows that it's  _his_ job to take care of him and make sure that nothing like that happens ever again. 

The second thing is that it's a lot harder to care about things like people staring at you after you've faced down a monster twice your size and come to terms with your own mortality. 

And maybe being compared to Greg isn't such a bad thing, after all. 

* * *

It doesn't always come easily, but Wirt can tell that he'll be better for it if he keeps trying. 

Being around Greg isn't a struggle anymore, and Wirt learns how to be nicer in the same way Greg learns how to be around Wirt without overwhelming him (like using a quieter voice - except for when he gets excited and forgets - or remembering to wash his face and hands so that Wirt doesn't get upset when he sees or touches them). Other things come even easier, a natural ebb and flow that Wirt never allowed himself to be a part of before (like complex games of pretend - stories furthered by Wirt's love of epics and Greg's wild imagination, like recognizing the overwhelmed sway of Wirt's body and the understimulated kick of Greg's legs, and the easy back and forth of quoted conversations). 

Other people notice, and Wirt recognizes that he doesn't care about it in the way he used to. His mom seems relieved both by the way Wirt is less on edge and anxious all the time and the fact that he's willing to step up and help watch Greg when she's busy. His classmates tell him that he's easier to talk to when he's less uptight. Even Greg's classmate's parents will comment on how nice it is to see him getting along with his younger brother now. 

The attention doesn't grate on his nerves like it used to. Wirt doesn't know if that's because he's more at ease with himself than he used to be, or if it's just because they could never be as scary as the beast was. 

Either way, he's grateful for it. 

* * *

"Hey, Wirt?" Greg says, eyes fixed on the tap of his fingers against his palm held too close to his face. 

"Yeah?" Wirt replies easily, not bothering to look up from the book he's reading as he rocks back and forth on the couch. 

There's a pause, and then, "I think I like you better now than I used to." 

Wirt's the one to pause at that, finally glancing up from the page to meet Greg's unusually serious gaze. Stopping to think about how things are different isn't necessary, but he does it anyway, to really try and reflect on what might have prompted this statement. It could be as simple as lingering humor from the game they had been playing earlier or as complicated as a shift in the way Wirt used to refuse to even spend too much time in the same room with Greg more often than not. 

Not that it really matters. 

"Me too," he says, and smiles at the matching pleased flicks of their wrists.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I started planning this fic WAY back when this show first came out, and then i just never wrote it, but hey! it got done eventually!!
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


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